Precision and Quality Assurance Issues Normative Data for Multisite Quantitative Ultrasound: The Canadian Multicenter Osteoporosis Study

Multisite quantitative ultrasound (mQUS) machines are attractive tools for assessing fragility fracture risk as they are often portable, comparatively inexpensive, require little training for their use, and emit no ionizing radiation. The primary objective of this investigation was to generate an mQUS normative database of speed of sound (SOS, in m/s) measures from a large sample of randomly selected community-based individuals. mQUS (BeamMed Omnisense MultiSite Quantitative Ultrasound 7000 S) measurements were obtained and assessed at the distal radius, tibia, and phalanx. All analyses were made separately for men and women and for each anatomical site. Scatterplots (SOS vs age) identified 30e39 yr of age as periods of both maximal SOS and of relative stability for all 3 sites over the age span investigated (30e96 yr of age; 2948 women and 1176 men) and, thus, was used as the ‘‘reference’’ population. For cross-sectional comparison of trends over aging, a number of age groupings were created: 30e39, 40e49, 50e59, 60e69, 70e79, and 80þ yr. In general, there were decreases in SOS over increasing age groupings. The normative data generated can be used to compare a given patient’s mQUS measurement with reference to a young, healthy population, assigning them a gender-appropriate T-score.